The good news for him and Louise Allison Cort, his co-curator for “Chigusa and the Art of Tea in Japan,” an exhibition organized for the Smithsonian Institution last spring and currently on view at the Princeton University Art Museum, is that it is better suited to “quiet, intimate contemplation,” Dr. Watsky said. More good news: The jar in question, which is most likely making its only appearance outside Washington, has about 500 years of experience beguiling the quietly contemplative.

Chigusa is the proper name of the roughly 16-inch-tall, unadorned brown vessel that sits behind plexiglass in the first of three galleries devoted to its central role in chanoyu, a revered Japanese tea ceremony. Made in China in the late 13th or 14th century, the jug for storing tea leaves found its way to Japan sometime before the 15th century, when it was discovered by chanoyu practitioners. Using similar vessels, the tea ceremony is still performed in Japan, as well as in the United States and other countries.

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A 1670 portrait of Sen no Rikyu, a revered 16th-century tea master.CreditCollection of Jane and Raphael Bernstein

Chigusa “is not the Mona Lisa,” Dr. Watsky said during a recent tour, meaning that it is not as famous worldwide as da Vinci’s masterpiece, but it is nonetheless considered an important work of art in Japan. Whether Americans will find it as stunning or arresting is up for debate, and a question that may well inspire them to consider the nature of beauty while getting to know the little brown jug and what it symbolizes.

“In China, where it was made, it was not an aesthetic object,” Dr. Watsky explained. “It was utilitarian. Only in Japan was it perceived to embody these rich aesthetic qualities” — possibly, he said, after a

15th- or 16th-century owner known for his skill at recognizing beauty discovered it. The term “Chigusa,” most likely drawn from the ancient Japanese poetry studied by chanoyu practitioners, translates to “myriad things” or “myriad flowers,” said Dr. Watsky, whose interest in Japanese ceramics dates to 1980, when he lived in Japan shortly after graduating from college.

“I hesitate to say I think it’s beautiful,” Dr. Watsky said of the vessel, “because as a scholar I try to separate my own response from what people in a historical moment might have thought about it. But I do find it appealing.”

His vague yet appreciative response to the centuries-old container echoes the elusive tone struck by some of its Japanese admirers, who wrote about the jar after communing with it during chanoyu. The exhibition includes a selection of letters and diary entries about the jar dating to the 16th century.

The diary excerpts often describe Chigusa physically. “The glaze is a single layer and resembles the wood-grain pattern known as ‘quail-feather grain,' ” reads one from 1586. The letters, including one from 1888 that describes a transfer between owners, get at the feelings and spirituality associated with the jar a bit better. “I hope you will long treasure it,” Hisada Hanshoan Soetsu, the initial owner, wrote. “My thoughts cannot be fully expressed.”

In addition to the preserved documents, the exhibition includes a model chanoyu room outfitted with tea utensils and an alcove within which Chigusa would have been placed for optimal viewing. Displayed in a separate gallery are three nesting storage boxes built to house Chigusa during its travels as well as at its owner’s home. The earliest box dates to the Japanese Edo period (1615-1868).

Also on view: a selection of ornaments and accouterments used to “dress” the vessel.

“In the front room we show Chigusa naked,” Dr. Watsky said. “But we know from the diaries that when Chigusa was displayed it had clothes on. Over time, the owners felt that one of the ways to enhance its beauty was to dress it in fine textile clothing.”

The wardrobe items include a mouth cover made from 15th-century silk brocade, a 16th-century blue net bag that slips over the jar’s contours and a set of decorative thick blue cords, tied in ornamental knots and woven in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Though Chigusa’s days as a vessel for storing tea have long since passed, its wardrobe is still being updated. When Freer Sackler, the Smithsonian’s Museums of Asian Art, in Washington, bought Chigusa in 2009, a conservator there said the mouth cover could no longer be used because the jar had become too fragile, Dr. Watsky said. “So we commissioned a new mouth cover to be made,” he said. “That’s not something you often associate with a museum’s practices, but owning Chigusa comes with responsibilities.”

Dr. Watsky and Ms. Cort plan to return Chigusa to the Freer Sackler after the Princeton show closes. “It will never leave there again,” Dr. Watsky said, noting that the museum’s policy precludes objects’ traveling. “So you see this is a pretty unusual opportunity.”

For those who take it in, the show’s effect will probably be more meditative than thrilling, Dr. Watsky said. “But with a little concentration and a little time spent looking,” he said, “maybe the beauty of Chigusa will reveal itself to you.”

“Chigusa and the Art of Tea in Japan” is on view through Feb. 1 at the Princeton University Art Museum, McCormick Hall, Princeton. Admission is free. The museum is open to the public on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Information: 609-258-3788 or artmuseum.princeton.edu.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page NJ11 of the New York edition with the headline: For Quiet Contemplation, a Little Brown Jug. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe